An Outmoded Paradigm
Politics is often though of as a line with a Right and Left side and an identifiable center. The center presumably signifies the area of compromise between the extremes…but it is unclear from such a construct what the “center” really is. In actuality, politics is not a line so much as a circle. At the apex you have individual freedom, at the nadir you have total control. One can diverge from freedom either to the right (social control) or to the left (economic control), diverge far enough, and right and left meet again at the nadir in total tyranny. Importantly, gravity is a constant force in politics. It takes an effort to stay at the apex — although gravitational forces are reduced at these celestial heights. However, the natural tendency will always be to slip down one side of the circle or the other. The desire to control others is seductive and strong and will always draw free people down from the apex if they ever fail the task of eternal vigilance. At the extreme right or left, the force of gravity increases exponentially, As society approaches the event horizon of the black hole of total tyranny, it becomes very difficult — if not impossible — for those who venture too far in either direction to resist being sucked in .
The true nature of the Political Spectrum.
It seems more useful to think about politics in this way. It removes the nebulous “center” and replaces it with a clearly defined human aspiration which is universal and (whether they admit it or not) desired by everyone. If they truly don’t desire individual liberty, then they either suffer under the delusion that they will be the ones at the top calling the shots (delusions of grandeur), or that they will become the beneficiaries of the new hierarchical power structure rather than the mules. It also explains why, after slipping into the gravitational field of the black hole of tyranny, those who are able to stand up and look around will discover that the Right and the Left are saying suspiciously similar things. As society moves closer to the event horizon, Right and Left become indistinguishable, and indeed have probably already joined forces against the people.
Update 9/27/2011:
Today I discovered Thoughts Aloud. A post from 2008 has a very similar drawing of the political spectrum, which I did not see before drawing the above.
Comments
I followed your comment link from informationisbeautiful.net . At first I thought your info-graphic was ugly. (I still do.) However, you have a brilliant point there, elegant but illustrated poorly. I’ll think about this concept of tyranny/collectivism and freedom/individualism as the extreme of both philosophies. If I come up with a better graphic (I’m a designer), I’ll send it to you.
Better, clearer and less divisive concept than informationisbeautiful.net.
Thanks and feel free to work on it. I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with. I did this quickly (obviously) — although I didn’t think it was quite that bad. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time and it was nice to put it into graphical form.
Good stuff! I have done some work on the political spectrum as well. Check it out here: http://littlebrothergov.wordpress.com/ if you want. I tend to prefer the one dimensional spectrum, arguing there should be no distinction between economic and social controls. I’d love to hear what you think of that and of the blog itself. This is a great liberty-minded blog, and (as an avid Radiohead fan) I particularly like the way you incorporate music.
I was wondering if anyone was listening to the music. It occurred to me that each post has a perfect song to go with it, it’s just a matter of finding it.